Deadly Cycles
by Mitsuki.Butterfly
Summary: Fight. Cry. Drink. Pass out. Wake up. Fight. Cry. Drink. Pass out. Wake up. Rinse and repeat. Korra and Bolin can't help but be a little masochistic when it comes to the ones they love.


_**Author's Note: Hello dearest readers ^-^**_

_**How's your day/night going?**_

_**Glad to hear that.**_

_**Me? Oh, nothing out of the ordinary. Just writing….MOAR BORRA FAN FICTION! MWAHAHAHAHAAAAAAAAA~ **makes pterodactyl noise, turns into a potato and vanishes in a puff of smoke****_

"So, what was it you wanted to talk about?" I ask tentatively, raising the bottle of lotus wine to my lips. The pink liquid slips down my throat like oil, and I squeeze my eyes shut, savoring the overwhelming tingle the alcohol leaves in my mouth. Korra throws her head back, taking a heavy swig from her own bottle.

"We fought again…" she whispers through the fingers pressed against her mouth, as if she is forcing the strong beverage to stay down. I sigh, this makes it the fourth time this month. It'd become sort of a ritual between us: her and my brother would fight for the entire day over something seemingly insignificant, Korra would attempt to cry herself to sleep and fail, and then she would sneak into my room to drown her problems in lotus wine I'd managed to smuggle onto the island. I set my bottle in the space between my crossed legs and reach over to brush a stray hair out of her eyes. She flinches and turns away, continuing to nurse her own drink. We sit there in an awkward silence, words of comfort bubbling to my lips. I choose to choke them down. Even if I did tell her that Mako was no good for her, that she was worth more than that, she would never listen.

"I know what you're thinking." She unfocusedly gazes at the ground, absently rubbing her thigh. "And you're wrong. Mako's a great guy, he just gets angry sometimes." When I was younger, I believed that Mako was a great guy. Hell, I thought he was the best damn thing on this planet since the creation of noodles! But how great really is a guy who hurts his own girlfriend, passing it off as just losing his temper?

"He bruised you again, didn't he?" I growl, my own temper rising. Korra tucks her knees to her chest and scoots away. No answer. She looks up when I grab her wrist.

"Korra! Did he give you another bruise? Answer me!" I roar, and her eyes begin to glisten. Shit. No crying, Spirits, don't let her cry. Korra yanks her hand away from me the tears are now rolling thickly off her chin. "**Korra. Did. He. Hurt. You.**"

"Yes, Bolin! Yes he did!" She hastily rolls up the left leg of her night pants with shaking hands to reveal several egg-shaped splotches of black and purple on the inside of her lower thigh. Trembling fingers press a bruise, making it swell angrily. A cry escapes her throat, and she presses it harder. My eyes widen and I can feel my face heat up with rage. No one lays their hands on _my_ Korra, not even my brother.

"That bastard…" My sight is quickly going hazy, but my hands find her body effortlessly. I pull her to my chest and she tries to retreat from my embrace. She may be the avatar, but when it comes to brawn, I have the upper hand, and I overpower her easily. She shifts so that she is on my lap, her hands limply clutching my chest, her head buried in the crook of my neck.

"I don't want your sympathy! I don't…I don't_ need_ your sympathy. It was my fault mostly…" Her voice cracks and I can feel the hot wet droplets on my ear.

"I said something stupid, I crossed the line. I deserved it…" As much as I want to shake her until her bones rattle and scold her like a child, I knew it would only make it worse.

"You don't deserve that. You don't deserve to be hurt by the one who says he loves you!" I can feel her chest heave with the force of her sobs. Maybe that was too harsh. My arms loosen their iron grip, but she tenses up and straddles my crossed legs, squeezing my calves with her own.

"Please don't let me go. If you do, I might fall apart."

Any gap that may have been left between our bodies is gone, and the pounding of her heart resonates through the thin fabric of my pajamas.

"If I let you go, I might fall apart, too."

Her fingers draw unsteady circles on my chest, and her sniffling starts to die down. Her breath on my ear steadies and she seems to sink deeper into my embrace. My hands lazily bury themselves in her hair and she exhales. Why would such a strong, stubborn, courageous, independent girl let herself be reduced to…to _this_?

"I love him, Bo." she whimpers, as if reading my mind. "I just love him so much; it hurts to be away from him."

"But it hurts to be with him," I mutter, and her fingers knot painfully in my shirt.

"Yeah," she breathes. We both know from all the previous times we've spent in this very room getting wasted off lotus wine together that there was nothing I could say to Korra that would make her contemplate her relationship with Mako, and there was nothing she could say to console me. Sometimes, I think that, despite the physical damage Mako caused to her, _I_ was the one feeling the most pain. She desperately wanted to believe that Mako was a good guy, that he was just going through a hard time, that he didn't mean what he did. And I desperately wanted her to see that I was the one who really loved her, the one that would never hurt her no matter what, and the one that would always make sure she was smiling that dazzling smile of hers. But she was so dense sometimes! So I showed her how much I cared about her in the only way she would notice: by being a shoulder for her to cry on. It was getting increasingly hard to just sit there and let her continue to run back to Mako once our evening rendezvous ended.

"Bolin. Promise me" Her head raises, and she looks defeated. Her eyes are bleary and red, her lips pale. She sticks out her pinky finger and stares up at me uncertainly.

"Anything." I offer my own pinky. Her's looks almost dwarfish next to mine. It wraps itself around my digit and I can't help but smile sadly.

"All I ask is that you never change. Always be here with wine and endless platypus-bear hugs. Promise me you'll be by my side when I need you. Promise me you'll never leave me."

I nod, and now it's my turn to cry. She grins slyly and pokes the trail of tears running down my face.

"Awwww look at the big strong earthbender crying like a little girl." I playfully try to swat her hand away, but she catches it before I can. She brings our intertwined hands to her cheek and, to my embarrassment, nuzzles it gently.

"Now remember, you made a promise to not just any old girl, but the _avatar_. And you do know what happens when you break a promise with the avatar, right?" I shake my head and duck down slightly so she can't see the blush rapidly tainting my cheeks.

"…Yeah, me neither, but you better not do it!" she laughs, and lays on single kiss on my middle knuckle.

And though we share a long, greatly-needed laugh, we both know that the heavy atmosphere hadn't cleared, but just moved to the back of our minds to be dealt with at a later date. For now, we'll drink ourselves stupid and exchange "hilarious" jokes that won't be as funny the next morning. She'll attempt with no success to teach me Water Nation folk songs. I'll make those faces she finds so entertaining. And we'll fall asleep in each other's arms, just like we always have.

Once I wake up, the first thing I'll see is Korra. Her radiant face so close to mine, her sweet breath on my lips. I'll gently roll her from her position lying on top of me onto my bed. And I'll silently repeat the vow I made the previous night.

I might add in a few lines and phrases. Afterwards, it'll sound a bit like marriage vows. But maybe that's what I was going for.

My heart will be set on finding Mako and beating the literal shit out of him, but just the thought of how betrayed Korra will feel deters me. So I'll just sit at the edge of my bed with my hands balled into fists at my sides, and cry exasperatedly as quietly as I can until she wakes up.

Never caring that these same events will repeat again and again over the course of who knows how long.

We were stuck, together, in a deadly cycle that, perhaps, we didn't really want to escape from.


End file.
